Atropia Review
Atropia (2025) Film Review, a movie written and directed by Hailey Gates and starring Alia Shawkat, Callum Turner, Zahra Alzubaidi, Toby Nichols, Gil Perez-Abraham, June Carryl, Shaholly Ayers, Tim Blake Nelson, Allius Barnes, Dash Melrose, Gilberto Ortiz, Charlet Duboc, Jamie McShane, Jane Levy, Priscilla Garita, Tim Heidecker and Chloë Sevigny.
Atropia, directed by Hailey Gates, starts off with a lot of juicy potential and a fairly solid premise, but the film ultimately falls apart due to a love story that never really gels. Gates’ unique film stars Alia Shawkat as an actress named Fayruz who is stationed at a U.S. Military Base which serves as an Iraqi war zone. Why is she there? She helps create real-life scenarios that prepare soldiers for genuinely challenging physical and emotional battle. Gates humorously starts the new film with a quote that suggests wars exist to essentially help people with their geography. Wars exist in this movie as training ops and throughout the film’s too-layered premise, Shawkat rises to the top with a remarkable leading performance. However, the script doesn’t do her nuanced work justice.
In the year 2006, the film sets itself in California and pictures are often hanging around of President George W. Bush. Tim Heidecker and Chloë Sevigny play the characters who essentially run the operation that Fayruz is immersed in. Fayruz sees that the people being trained and prepared for real-life aren’t getting the skills they need to survive under more intensive circumstances. Meanwhile, a journalist, Nancy (Jane Levy), is present in the location as well and she finds humor in scribbling risqué messages in a porta potty.
All bets are off when Fayruz develops a bond with a man named Abu Dice (Callum Turner). Recently, Turner has made a name for himself as a romantic leading man in movies like Eternity, but this time out, the relationship between Abu Dice and Fayruz seems a bit forced and a bit unrealistic. Fayruz takes huge risks to be with Abu Dice, and the premise feels a tad far-fetched given Fayruz’s professional aspirations. This film wants to show us that Fayruz transforms as a character over the course of the movie and thanks to a great performance by Shawkat, we get a little bit of that coming across on-screen. Turner’s role is a mess, though, and there’s precious little chemistry between the pair of would-be lovers. Individually, both roles work, but collectively as a romantic unit, the movie self-destructs when it focuses on these characters’ love story.
A huge turtle plays a part in the action of Atropia. However, it serves as more of a motif in the picture which is far less concerned with following through on its explosive premise and is more focused on showing the character transformation Shawkat’s Fayruz undergoes. While there are a few really effective scenes, the movie is all over the place in its depiction of war and comes across more as a satire in its initial stages than it needed to be. This presentation detracts from the quality of the film as a whole and the film ends up becoming a tale of lost love and forbidden desires. It’s hard to see that coming from the excellent opening scenes of the movie, but some people could be disappointed by the film’s muddled resolve.
Of course, Atropia needs to find its footing by focusing on love in order to make its grander points. There are no big dramatic resolves here. Instead, lessons are learned and hearts are broken while war continues in a clueless America that thinks it’s much smarter than it really is through the invention of this fake scenario the movie so interestingly presents.
Alia Shawkat is amazingly precise in capturing her character’s nuances and Turner has some intriguing scenes beside her when they’re not feeling the need to be intimate with one another. Atropia could have been about the exploitation of young military members, but instead, becomes a run of the mill drama about a woman experiencing love and loss while learning the true nature of her decided profession.
Though Atropria is slow-moving at times, it’s still interesting and could appeal to both fans of Shawkat and Turner. With a realistic ending, the film keeps the viewer riveted even though there’s a lot more that could have been done with this essential premise. Although the over-sized turtle plays a significant part in the movie, it’s a small part when considering the fact that the mysterious creature is prominently featured all over the print ads for this film. Atropia‘s story line creates an initially fascinating scenario which is enhanced by solid performances and twisty plot developments. Alia Shawkat has the stuff great actresses are made of and just needs to find the quality film to let those talents make her the successful actress she deserves to become.
Rating: 6.5/10
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